Tinker Pond Loop (4.2 miles on Fort Huachuca)

I enjoy this loop.  No other place lets you walk your dog off leash without concern of annoying wildlife.  I took Susan on this loop walk on Wednesday and took a group from the Sierra Vista Hikers on Thursday, so I'm compiling photos into one report.

I wanted to reconnoiter the trail before leading this as a group hike and Susan agreed to go with me since she couldn't make the Thursday hike. This was Susan's first visit to the area.  We stopped first at Middle Pond,  a reservoir right off the road to the trailhead parking, which still had water overspilling its dam, and walked around the pond.  I was last here with SteveT last December but the pond was overflowing and we didn't walk around it.  Today the water was lower, but the surface was covered in cottonwood seeds.  The trees are now shedding their seeds over the San Pedro river, too.  Allie didn't realize that the white stuff on the water was not strong enough to support her, and jumped right in, not expecting to have to swum right out.  Neither Susan nor I panicked and that kept Allie calm, but she was much more careful near the water after that.  Minnie, however, was in heaven.

We walked the perimeter around the pond and stayed in the shade of tall trees.  This walk was only 0.4 miles and I was confident that Minnie would start the longer hike cooled and refreshed.

We began this hike with all of our dogs at 1:19pm under partly cloudy skies and a cool breeze.  It was in the upper 60s, so near the high range of what Minnie can tolerate.  I carried water, but luckily there was water running in the creek.  We stopped three times to let Minnie rest and drink, but she made the hike under her terms and everyone was happy. We stopped briefly by the small waterfall as well, where both Sadie and Zeke huddled under the shade.  Sadie is still very exhausted from the hike up Miller.

It was a blast to see the dogs all have fun in the water once we got to the pond, where we sat on large boulders under oak trees.  Susan played fetch with the pack and I watched.  The water level from the pond has already receded some since I was here with Steve last December.

We walked back creating a loop, circling the hills of the Land Navigation course.  There was water the entire time for the dogs until we got to the main road taking us back to the cars; a half-mile distance. We saw only one type of flower, the purple Spring Beauty.  We also walked past a horned toad, which was resting on the road without a care.

Winds were staring to pick up and clouds were moving in, which was fine with us.  We had timed this two-hour hike well, with the heat holding off behind clouds.  The dogs all enjoyed this romp

I repeated this hike then again today with SteveD with dog Morgan, DavidB, Galen and wife Sunny, BonnieM, Jeoung and Jenny with her dog.  I only brought Zeke since he's the best around other dogs and he was an excellent ambassador.  He quickly had the other dogs at ease as they all chased each other in the grass.

I enjoyed this group.  They have been hiking together as part of the Sierra Vista Hikers MeetUp group for a while so there is some camaraderie among them that I don't have, (working while they are hiking), but today I got to meet everyone and enjoyed the company.  There are no slowpokes in this group and nobody whined.

The three Korean women all wore face masks to guard against the coronavirus, something that I'm starting to consider as well.  When I got home NPR announced that the earth had now surpassed 1 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 52,133 deaths after 69 days of reporting.  Susan's daughter Andrea on Long Island is now a confirmed  case, too. Arizona  has 1598 confirmed cases and 32 deaths, with four confirmed cases in Cochise County.